Friday, April 6, 2012

My newest Seneca has me seeing red!

Lucky #13 (213 that is) is a beautiful card that I've been chasing for a while /50. For the longest time I just couldn't find it anywhere, but then it popped up in the collection of Seneca's #1 guy, the guy who won't sell me the Mirror Black yet. He of course wanted $10+ for it, which was reasonable since I hadn't seen any of the other 49 in ages, but I decided to wait him out in case another in the series appeared on Ebay. Good move by me, as a week ago this baby popped up with a BIN OBO of $19.99. I got it down to about a fifth of that, saving myself quite a few dollars off the other potential price, and this arrived in my mailbox today:
I'm loving the red foil - sooooo nice. The swatch is interesting too - like the Bowman Blue it has an odd yellow residue, which I'm sure has been mistaken by some collectors for dirt or sweat. Thing is, these were event worn jerseys, so it's more likely that the yellow is related to the adhesive that sticks the jersey to the card back. Still gives it an interesting look that sets it apart from your basic off white jersey!

The more unfortunate piece, to some collector's anyway, is that the card came damaged. You might be able to see it above if you zoom (it's on the left and right vertices of the jersey window) but if you can't here's a close up of the worst creasing:
I went back and checked the auction - the damage is slightly visible in the picture so it was there pre-shipping, AND the card is listed as in Like New condition. Uh oh! Thing is, I don't care a ton about condition and this doesn't ruin the card for me, especially at that price point. And I like this seller because he is located in the Iowa State area and says he'll look for rarer Senecas after I shared my collection. So I sent him a little message saying something to the tune of "I love this card and don't need a refund, but in the future double check your condition as you list." Dinged the item description a little and otherwise left all positives - so it goes in the Ebay world.

There was also a super weird discovery with this card. I never noticed it with my other Bowman's Best jersey cards, but Seneca's position is, ahem, altered:
As you'll notice under the serial #, Seneca is listed as a wide receiver! When he first came into the league many urged the athletic Wallace to make the switch to receiver, and he resisted despite some neat receiving plays executed during his time in the NFL. Apparently Bowman's Best didn't believe in him though, as this is the only card I've found thus far with the WR designation instead of a QB designation. Very odd, and I'm glad I noticed it!

2 comments:

  1. Ahhh, the less than visible damage to the card that can only be seen with a telescopic view finder on a scan but is plain as day visible to the naked eye that was technically "explained and covered" under the subjective "condition" entry on the description trick. Been burned on that one before.

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  2. To my regret and shame, you handled the damaged card situation far more gracefully than I have in similar circumstances. Good for you.

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